Grandma's Passing

My Grandma passed away yesterday, at age 94. I always liked this picture of her, which I took during a summer visit to North Carolina in 2007, the year before Grandpa passed away. You can see the sky and trees from her back porch (and me taking the photo) in the reflection.

But that picture doesn't show as much of her warm spirit as is warranted, so I'll submit this photo of us hand-churning ice cream (one of our favorite pastimes) with my cousin on my mom's porch in the mid 1980s.

We always held Christmas Eve at her house, and those are fond memories as well, but I couldn't find the photos of those times today. We would walk over from Mom's house through the woods to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas Even dinner every year, then open family presents and walk back home, full of food and family stories, in the crisp Appalachian December darkness, illuminated only with our flashlights, the moon or stars.

For the first six years of my life, I was lucky enough to be the only grandchild, and after that, my parents and I lived on the hill adjacent to ours in rural North Carolina. Grandma didn't have a job, which guaranteed that at any time from that point forward, I could expect to always have a gingerbread cookie and a bowl of hard candy waiting for me at her A-Frame house (shown below after they first moved in in the late 1970s). I would often stop by while riding my bike as a kid to talk to her as she worked in her garden.

Grandma loved hiking around in their 50-acre woodlands, and so did I, as an only child living out in the country. Here we are pictured on a hike that we and my parents took one day up to the top of a nearby mountain in the early 1980s.

Grandma came with us to the beach in North Carolina every Summer during my life until she couldn't travel. The photo below was taken just after Grandpa passed in 2008, but my most vivid memories are from 25 years before that, of getting up early (we were the only two that would) and taking a walk on the beach to find seashells (which, as legend says, were much more plentiful back then).

Grandma's passing didn't come as a surprise, but that doesn't always make it easier. She had suffered from Alzheimer's for more than 8 years, hadn't spoken much in the last year, and could barely wake up for the last month. And yet a life of healthy choices made her body's strength, even though her mind had left, amazing.

During all that time, my mom was her primary care provider, and it was a testament to both of their kindness, good nature and patience -- Filial piety at its best.

I last saw Grandma in August, and even though she was barely there, in the moment, I was glad that I did. This was my last picture, with her and my mom:

Installing a SSD in my Dell Inspiron 3650 Desktop

After weeks of working and ordering cables, I FINALLY got my SSD HD installed on my new desktop today. If I'd have known it was this hard I might not have done it, or might have spent the money to get a desktop with one already installed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again though -- having Windows on an SSD is THE BEST improvement you can make. Even on this brand new Inspiron 3650 computer, it was still slow to boot and launch programs until I completed this task.

(Sidenote: I got a great deal on this Dell Inspiron 3650 on CyberMonday 2017. It comes with a 2 TB HDD, 12 GB RAM & an i7-7400 processor, but no SSD)

I'm writing this blog to say that is IS possible to install the Samsung 850 EVO SSD on an Inspiron 3650 desktop, it just takes some research, specific parts, and work, especially if you're like me and haven't installed a hard drive since Windows 98.

One problem was the proprietary power cord that Dell puts in these computers, shown above at the arrow. It comes hardwired with one end proprietary to this motherboard, and is split into one SATA and one other power cord that goes to the DVD-ROM. So even if you purchase another of these proprietary cables with two SATA power ports, you can keep your old HDD but you will lose your DVD-ROM (I *think* a SATA power splitter will solve this but I still have to test that theory).
Another problem is that the SSD bracket Amazon gives you with this SSD doesn't work in the Inspiron 3650 due to proprietary brackets that Dell uses. Early on in the Inspiron Desktop line, and even shortly after they began selling the 3650, it was impossible to purchase the bracket without convincing a Dell salesperson that you needed it. Fortunately now you can purchase it on Amazon. (Supposedly -- I haven't tried it out yet). I suspect I may not be able to use it due to the long distance between the hard drives and motherboard in the 3650). You don't HAVE to have this, you can secure the SSD with existing screw holes or cable prongs, or you could leave it hanging (not a great idea but not a huge problem with SSD's since they have no moving parts).

Yet another problem is the BIOS, which Dell was kind enough to include two confusing options (F2 & F12 on bootup). Before I reversed the SATA cables, putting the Samsung SSD on SATA1 and the other hard drive on SATA2, I could not find an option in the BIOS to boot to the SSD at all, even with their F12 boot-from menu, which either tried to boot from the network card (why in the world is that even an option), or said it was booting from the SSD but in fact booted Windows on the old HDD.

Here's a step-by-step process that will allow you to port your current Windows 10 installation over from the HDD to the SSD:

1.) Plug in your Samsung EVO SSD into a USB port on your computer. (To do this, you'll need a special cable that is rumored to come with the EVO, but didn't for me, and my Vantec HDD to USB didn't let Windows or Samsung software recognize the drive -- super surprising to me because the Vantec has saved my ass many times).

2.) Install and run the Samsung Data Migration software (the "Magician" software doesn't appear to do anything useful). This will clone your drive, and despite what some say, you DON'T need other software like EaseUs to do this.

3.) Shut down your computer, unplug everything and open 'er up (a little tricky but there are instructions online).

4.) Install your bracket & cables (you'll need one SATA data cable and whatever solution works for the bizarre Dell power situation, I'll explain more later with a picture, when I get a working solution that saves the DVD-ROM too).

5.) Plug your SATA data cable INTO THE SATA1 (BLUE) port. It won't work without this, I found out in the end, because the BIOS (despite all the options) will never boot from anything but the first port.

6.) Boot up. You shouldn't have to do ANYTHING to the BIOS, it should just boot up. If it's still slow, and you can only see your old HDD when you get into Windows, you can pop out the CMOS battery to reset everything. (Because I did this before doing #5 correctly, I'm not sure if this step is required, but it didn't work by itself).

7.) Now if you can't see your old HDD in Windows, it's because of something called a "Disk Signature Collision." Follow the instructions on Google to re-enable it. Now, you're good to go, you can delete Windows off your old HDD and use it for storage. Hooray!